After coming off an unsuccessful application season, I wanted to make sure I utilized all avenues to not repeat my mistakes this time. After hearing some positive word-of-mouth, I signed up for Applicant Lab to see for myself. I used the Lab in addition to working with actual real-world consultants, and it turned out to be an immensely useful guiding tool through the application journey.

I must say that Applicant Lab was the most value-for-money item in my entire MBA application expense list. Maria's inputs and ideas often were the starting point for all my school essays. I did 8 applications in the entire season and utilized the Lab for all of them. Maria has a great understanding of the entire process and freely shares her knowledge through the Lab. Its almost like having a close friend who you can bank on in this stressful journey.

For the two additional questions posed by Booth after interview invite, the Applicant Lab team (hello Carin!) was quick to update the portal with their thoughts. Overall, I highly highly recommend this tool to everyone, even those working with consultants on full packages. The additional perspective, tips & guidance is worth much more than the cost.

Coming off an unsuccessful application season I decided to work with August Academy on 3 schools (1 reach T5 school, 2 competitive T10 schools). Karthik was very encouraging from the beginning and I really appreciated his systematic ways of working (using Asana to manage tasks, delegate, and follow-up). We revised the career narrative, spent a ton of time refining the resume and then moved to essays. The inputs provided by Karthik were very useful and he seemed deeply invested in my success. I succeeded in getting 2 interview calls from the T10 schools and eventually received 1 admit with scholarship and 1 waitlist which are great results given my profile.

Coming off a zero admit season I was desperately seeking good advice and counsel for my reapplication season. As part of my search, I reviewed the list of consultants on mbaMission website and decided to set up a 30 min complimentary call with Melissa. I was intrigued by her experience leading the admissions committee at an actual business school, and wanted to get her thoughts on my candidacy and approach.
While I decided to go with an Indian consultant for a school package due to budgetary constraints, I didn't want to miss out on Melissa's expertise and decided to go for hourly services with her.

I loved Melissa's direct but positive & encouraging approach to my questions, and while initially I was apprehensive about how the whole "hourly" service will work, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of value I was able to derive from it. I used Melissa's expertise in fine-tuning my resume, reviewing essays for a couple of schools, getting answers to miscellaneous questions, and I finished it with a mock interview. For those who may be apprehensive about spending 4-5K to get such expert advice as a full package, I'd say the "hourly service" is a great way to not miss out on some very valuable support and guidance.

Melissa's feedback on essays and story structure was crucial (specially for Fuqua's 25 things) and she also suggested some super edits to resume bullets which were minor changes but greatly increased the impact of the bullets. The mock interview was also very helpful as we focused on pace and tone apart from the stories. I also sought her advice on things like interviewing with alum vs on campus and it was reassuring to make those decisions knowing that I was not doing it alone.

I had final offers from Chicago Booth, Kellogg & Duke Fuqua and I have no qualms in admitting that Melissa had a material effect in ensuring these great results.